Return of the Angry Man

In his first four months, Dean visited 23 states, 10 of them Republican "red." A testament to the mileage he has covered, and to his Yankee frugality, are the loafers he is balancing against a desk. Two perfect half moons have been worn deep into the heels. The shoes suggest the man.

Dean's motto could be the Gadsden flag's "Don't Tread on Me." He refuses to submit to the opinion of others, and he insists on leading by his own lights. He is an old-fashioned Yankee fiscal conservative with moderate social values, the strictly reared son of one of New York's first families, whose anti-Republican rhetoric comes from a genuine loathing of deficits and resentment of governmental intrusions. "They're undermining American values," he snaps. At times, he resembles the kind of Democrat that existed pre-Great Society, in the mode of Truman. Dean so identifies with Truman that he used to read from David McCullough's biography to his children, Anne and Paul, at bedtime. "He stood for common sense, common decency. He spoke the common tongue."

Then again, sometimes he doesn't resemble a Democrat at all. Sometimes he sounds like a Rockefeller Republican, who preaches individual rights "but also responsibilities." It's a Deanian irony that the only people he angers more than conservatives are liberals. In fact, Dean resists simple ideology or box politics. What to do with a pro-choice, civil-unions, fiscal-conservative, antiwar, NRA-endorsed law-and-order-pro-death-penalty Democrat who won't keep quiet? He's a maverick.

"Maverick just implies someone who doesn't toe the party line, and I don't," he says. "And I don't toe the expected line."

One would not expect the DNC chair to fly coach. But he does. He rides the New York subway and the Washington Metro. He generally refuses car service, because he doesn't like to waste money or time in traffic. Also, he can't stand luggage carousels. "Anyone who travels with me has to do carry-on," he says. His travel bag is a beaten up Tumi with red masking tape jacked around the handle. It contains exactly one suit.

"The joke around here is that Howard needs a visit from 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,' " says Betsey Krumholz, a longtime acquaintance from Burlington, Vt.

One would also expect the DNC chair to spend considerable time in the capital. But Dean spends two days a week max at the DNC office here, preferring instead to visit state parties. Recently he had lunch with, as he described them, some "very old influential heavy-hitter lobbyists." They gently suggested that he ought to do more time in Washington.

"I can't," he said. "No votes in Washington."

That is the sort of smart and spiny thing Dean likes to say, and, when it's accompanied by rolled-up sleeves and a tie askew, he radiates a sense of possibility for his party. But he's also capable in the next instant of making a statement that forces staffers to roll their eyes and rush back to their offices to control the fallout. It has become a weekly ritual: Dean says something, such as calling Republicans "pretty much a white, Christian party," angering conservatives and scaring the wits out of centrist Democrats, who promptly distance themselves from him.

Yet Dean resists efforts by his advisers to discipline his frankness, or to groom him. According to Tom McMahon, the DNC executive director, when aides would prep Dean for debates during the campaign, they could never teach him to dodge questions artfully. He charges straight into his answers.

"Pivot," McMahon said he told Dean. "You don't always have to answer the question. Pivot."

"When I hear the question, I just feel like I have to answer it," Dean replied.